How Claude Helped Me Build Kolony And a Fiction Series Bible

As an author, I’ve always been full of ideas. But I’m more than author. I’m also a businessman, and that comes with its own set of challenges.

When it comes to implementing ideas, both authors and entrepreneurs usually struggle with one of two problems. On the one hand, there’s what writers call “writer’s block.” They stare at a blank page and don’t know what to write. I’ve never had that problem. I don’t know what the entrepreneurial equivalent is—if there is one.

The other challenge is having so many ideas you don’t know what to do with them. You see so many paths forward you can’t choose one. That’s the problem I have. And that’s where Claude comes in.

How Claude Keeps Me Organized and Productive

I started playing with ChatGPT in January this year. That effectively makes me an early adopter but a late comer to the early adopter scene. I’m not a bit ashamed of showing up so late.

Right away, I knew ChatGPT could be a productive killer or a productivity enhancer. Like most people, I started with prompting. I particularly liked being able to ask it a question and get reasonably good answers without having to scroll through pages of blue links. Even if the information I received was suspect, I could easily fact-check it.

At the same time, I took some gig work through an AI training platform. That allowed me to delve into the AI scene more deeply and helped me to learn how to write good system instructions. By April, I was playing with Claude.

Since the beginning of this year, I’ve had a chance to play with most of the frontier LLMs. Claude has become my favorite. After learning to prompt and write system instructions, I started scheduling projects and writing Skills. About the time that I began playing with Hermes through the Command Line Interface (CLI), Nous Research rolled out the Hermes desktop model and Claude launched Fable 5.

I had already built one app with Claude Code, but Fable 5 allowed me to launch another one called Kolony (more on that below).

One of the most valuable things I’ve found about Claude is its ability to help me track my projects. Like I said, I have a ton of ideas. I can tell Claude, “log this into my idea bank.” Then I can revisit the idea later. When I want to review my ideas, I just ask Claude to give me the list and there it is. More importantly, I start my day with a Daily Briefing. Claude looks at my Asana tasks and shows me my top 3 daily tasks followed by a list in the Waiting queue. When I finish a top 3 Daily, the next task in the Waiting queue pops onto the Daily list. This way, I stay focused on what really matters each day and I end up getting more done.

Introducing Kolony: A Magazine-Format App for the Hive Blockchain

If you’ve been reading my posts for a while, you know I’m active on Hive—my favorite Web3 social media platform. Readers of ++my books++ know I talk about Hive as if it’s family. Truthfully, Hive allows me to publish my content on an active blockchain and earn rewards for it—with very little extra work. In just a few years, I’ve earned thousands of dollars.

Of course, like many other projects, Hive has its limitations. Its upsides are worth every one, but one of the downsides is there is only one way to view content. Reverse chronological order.

That makes sense because it’s the natural viewing mode for every blog. It has been since blogging was a thing. But what if a Hive user could present all of their past content in a magazine format? I asked the question and Claude gave me the answer.

When Claude gave all Pro users the ability to play with Fable 5 for two weeks for free, I took advantage of the opportunity and asked it to build the first version of Kolony for the Hive blockchain. With no coding, I was able to build a website that allows any Hive user to reorganize their published Hive content in categories, tags, and personalized content blocks without needing specialized development skills. If you’re on Hive, you can claim your magazine just by logging in with Hive Keychain.

Since publishing Kolony v1, I’ve added a few improvements. Hive users can reorder their content, present it in 3 columns, and interact with other Hive users through the Kolony web app. The next stage of development is to build out the ability to post to the Hive blockchain through Kolony.

The Merkabah Chronicles Bible

When I started writing the first book The Merkabah Chronicles series (Strangers and Aliens: 60 Days for Abel), I had no idea what I was getting myself into. Writing a novel, let alone a series, is hard work. For a pantser (writing by the seat of one’s pants), it’s particularly challenging because I don’t typically write fiction from an outline. That means, it’s easy for some story elements to get lost with long stories like novels.

While I do make heavy use of Claude and other LLMs to keep me productive, one thing I’ve been reluctant to do is turn over the writing entirely to any LLM.

Full disclosure: I do let Claude write short stories and flash fiction for me. Some of those have been published at The Grimoire under the pseudonyms N-Specter and White-Haired Uncle. A novel is a different beast.

After the last revision of Strangers, I asked Claude to perform a structural edit. This is an editing stage that involves looking at the story structure—the bird’s eye view—and seeing what structural challenges are holding the story back. I discovered how far off the track my novel really was.

Of course, I knew it was bad. But Claude found issues I’d have never found on my own. And it dawned on me that I needed a series Bible.

A series Bible is a load-bearing document that details information about the setting, the characters, and the plot that should remain consistent across a series. Since I’m currently planning three novels in this series, it’s an important document to have. It’s supposed to help the writer keep the story elements consistent across the series by eliminating the need to rely on memory alone.

After identifying the story strengths and weaknesses, I asked Claude to review the story itself (80,000 words) and create the series Bible for me. It would have taken me weeks to do it myself. It took Claude minutes.

Now, here’s the interesting part: I asked Claude to categorize every element of the story in specific storytelling categories (Locations, Science, Magic, Politics, Climate, etc.), and for each category to list all the known details, the unknown details that a reader would care about, any inconsistencies and contradictions, and anything that isn’t clear. I ended up with a 10,000-word Bible that serves as a great starting point. Now, the task is to go through the Bible and organize it in a way that is helpful to me while fleshing out the details that need to be fleshed out in order to tell a better story. A process that would take weeks can now be done in days.

That’s where I stand right now with The Merkabah Chronicles series Bible. I’m working through the notes to make it good enough to help me finish the first novel in the series. All of this is possible because of Claude.

Now, I can see light at the end of a very dark tunnel. Readers who have been waiting for me to complete this novel can be reassured that I haven’t abandoned it. It’s taking me longer than I wanted it to, but I am now on track to complete this novel and get it published soon. Beyond that, it should be easier to finish the other two books in the series because I’ll start those with a clear vision of where the stories are headed.

First published at Substack. All images are screenshots.

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